


Things Made Whole

by misbegotten



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: F/M, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 03:04:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12998481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misbegotten/pseuds/misbegotten
Summary: What comfort she finds in his bony rack, in the hunched carcass that houses his artificially beating heart, he's not positive.That heart thundering beneath her touch is the only thing that grounds her some days.





	Things Made Whole

There's truth writ on Ellie's skin. The truth of a life lived, of scars from babies, of little pains, of worry lines, and sagging skin. There's truth there, and Hardy needs that so much from the world. Something away from work, away from the muck and filth of the lives they peer into and dissect as they worm their way close to unbearable realities. As he crosses her flesh, lips ghosting endearments that are foreign to his tongue in daylight hours, he thinks he could easily get lost in her.

What comfort she finds in his bony rack, in the hunched carcass that houses his artificially beating heart, he's not positive. To be sure, she takes the pleasure offered. She's steered their course from the moment their lips first met in a tentative kiss, flaming into astonished desire. She hadn't let him back down, but had pushed her way into his territory, pinned him to the spot with just the tangle of her fingers in the lapel of his jacket. She had been quietly relentless, like when she is on the hunt for a puzzle piece, a clue into the whys and hows of the terrible things that family, friends, strangers do to each other. Always about motives, is Ellie, about understanding. And she understood, in his touch, a need to be _wanted_. He think she pities him a little, and why not because he's a prickly, lonely bastard. But she's made of stern stuff, his Ellie, of grit and determination. He's seen her at her worst, retching and undone. But there's always been truth between them, and when she joins with him, there's something in him made whole again. Something slotted back into place after life has tried to kick him down and spit him out on a daily basis.

*

There's little joy in Alec Hardy, Ellie thinks with fondness. And yet he gives it to her willingly. Admittedly in small doses. It's there in the unfettered pride when he speaks of Daisy. Or the way he trusts Ellie, trusted her when no one else would and keeps right on trusting her every day to put up with his moods and impatience and wretched taste for over-stewed tea. It's there in the press of his lips against her as he tastes her. It's in the half-smile that crosses his face when he thinks she can't see, as he drowses in slippery moonlight with her tucked against his side. 

The first time she'd seen it, that flicker of happiness, she'd wanted to crow with the knowledge that she (frumpy, stubborn, betrayed _thing_ that Joe had made her) had been the one to crack a smile on Alec Hardy's face. But she held the feeling close, let it burn into her as a mark that yes, despite the way he chastises her constantly for being sympathetic and human, there is joy in him too. And she sets herself about teasing it from him, instilling it in him with kisses deep and languid, and the gentle scrape of her fingertips across the scar that marks his pale chest. That heart thundering beneath her touch is the only thing that grounds her some days. Makes manageable the head slaps and continual frustration of the kids' growing pains, of the bombardment of horrors that claw at her edges at work. That heart, made whole by a little piece of medical marvel, held in her shaky hands. It is a constant wonder to her. She knows it's the thing that has kept him here, a hope that in Broadchurch he'll find the place he's meant to be. Maybe she flatters herself to think that a little part of her life is where he's meant to be too.


End file.
